Microsoft Excel’s chart feature makes it pretty simple to “get your piece of the pie” into a spreadsheet, but once you’ve added that visual, it may seem like you’re stuck. Whether you need additional pie slices, want a different color scheme, have to add numbers or just don’t like the way the chart appears, formatting is entirely up to you. Make the pie chart match your corporate document requirements by sampling Excel’s formatting features.

1. Launch Excel and open the spreadsheet with the pie chart to format. It may help to zoom in and make the actual pie chart as large as possible.

2. Click the pie chart to open the green Chart Tools tab. If you don’t see one of the buttons or featured referenced herein, you probably have clicked off the pie chart and closed the Chart Tools tab, which is only open when the chart is active.

3. Review the options in the Chart Styles section of the ribbon. These let you reformat the color of the pie chart in a single click. Choose new colors that match your business plan, the report’s purpose or your preferred shades.

4. Click the “Change Chart Type” button on the left of the ribbon. Scroll to the Pie section and choose a different pie format, such as going from 2-D to 3-D or flat to exploding. This is also where you would format the pie graph to an entirely different type of chart, such as a bar graph. Click “OK” when satisfied with this formatting change.

5. Click one piece of the pie and drag it out to the edges of the chart’s box. This automatically changes a flat pie chart to an exploding one, as you’ve put space in between the pieces.

6. Right-click any single piece of the pie chart. Choose “Format Data Point” and select “Fill.” Click a new solid color for the pie piece. This is useful when you don’t want any of Excel’s color choices. You can change multiple pie pieces to the same color by holding down the “Ctrl” key before you right-click.

7. Expand the Chart Layouts section of the ribbon and click an option. This places formatting such as pie piece percentages onto the chart. It also adds text, where applicable, which can help viewers understand which pie piece represents what in your spreadsheet.

8. Click into one of the cells that hold the data for the pie chart. Type a new number. Note that Excel will automatically reformat the pie chart to update it for this new data point – you do not have to do anything to the pie chart.

9. Click the “Ctrl-S” buttons to save the spreadsheet over the existing one, or resave the file with a different name to keep the existing file intact.

Tips

These instructions apply to Excel 2013, but function almost exactly the same in Excel 2010. You may see several differences to the layout of the Charts features and in other areas of the software in a different version.

If you don’t yet have a pie chart, you can easily create one. You need at least two sets of data points. Highlight just the cells with the data for the pie chart, then click the Charts option. Choose one of the pie charts, such as 2-D, and Excel inserts it onto the grid. You can then follow these instructions to format the chart.

About the Author

Fionia LeChat is a technical writer whose major skill sets include the MS Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher), Photoshop, Paint, desktop publishing, design and graphics. LeChat has a Master of Science in technical writing, a Master of Arts in public relations and communications and a Bachelor of Arts in writing/English.